Coral in Torre del Greco: 200 years of history

Coral in Torre del Greco: 200 years of history

08-02-2021
It is not uncommon to associate the processing of coral and cameos with Torre Del Greco.
Thanks to the skill of the master engravers and the charm of the creations, the fame of the city, has conquered the whole world.
Over time there have been various attestations of coral processing, including in painting. Paintings tell of the ancient tradition and the development it has had in different times and on various places.
 

The first coral workshop

Coral processing in Torre del Greco started in 1805, when Paolo Bartolomeo Martin, from Marseille, set up his shop in the city. The French men had arrived in Torre Del Greco offering his art "in exchange for a good deal" and the consequent promise of the Bourbons to exempt him from taxes favored the spread of his work. With his workshop we can say that he started the first coral and cameo factory in the city.
If coral processing dates back to the nineteenth century, it should be emphasized that as early as the fifteenth century the people of Torre Del Greco were known as coral fishermen. With their boats they went off the thriving seas of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Algeria and Tunisia. Coral fishing was an important part of the local economy, to the point that in the seventeenth century it involved fourthousand inhabitants out of a population of fifteenthousand people and the coral caught was then marketed in Livorno, Genoa and Marseille.
 

The other artistic workshops

Although it was widespread, coral fishing was not very profitable, so it did not produce wealth in Torre Del Greco. The scenario of poverty contrasted with labor and abundant raw materials: a good situation for the French men. In exchange for the King’s tax exemption, Paolo Bartolomeo Martin had to educate new workers, who once the benefit of the French expired found themselves able to start their own businesses in the city. It was at that moment that Torre Del Greco started to be unique in the world.
Over time, the various processes in Europe ceased to exist, leaving the Neapolitan city the primacy for the processing of Mediterranean coral, which goes hand in hand with that of the cameo on shell. This is an art that started from Rome, and then reached Naples and Torre del Greco. Today, shell cameo processing is carried out only in Torre del Greco, but this is another story ...